Three foundations to solve any screenwriting problem.
Most everything I teach comes down to three pillars. I have found that when I am struggling, one of them has broken down.
Keep the audience engaged as you keep secrets.
You never want the audience to wonder what the story is. Let them think they know. And then reveal it to be something more.
Falling to the level of your systems.
"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." — James Clear.
Your Subplots Are Story, Too.
There is no “B Story”; only the main story.
And that main story has subplots that support and deepen it.
Audience satisfaction is your job.
Audience satisfaction is about the audience experiencing enough of an emotional journey that they feel like their money, attention, and, above all, their time was worth it.
The scene is the emotion. The emotion is the scene.
Movies are an emotion delivery system. This is the point of the whole exercise. And that is the point of the scene.
It's the relationships that matter in your screenwriting.
“What audiences really care about,” he said, “Was seeing the character share that achievement with a loved one.”
Keep a scene dynamic through character tactics.
The key to keeping a scene fresh and alive is characters making choices in reaction to what happens around them.
Five lessons that saved my screenwriting career.
After my career collapsed in 2005 and my slow return to it around 2008 or so, I realized there were dozens of things I didn’t want to repeat.
Do we really need to raise the stakes?
Raising the stakes often misses the point.
What we really want is for the audience to care more deeply about the story’s outcome.
The questions you ask matter.
"How do I format slow motion in my screenplay?"
It sounds simple, right? But it's the wrong question.
Don't sleep on writing short films.
Writing shorts is a near-perfect laboratory for improving your screenwriting. Nearly everything you learn about feature writing applies to shorts.